Finding Time to Stand and Stare

Here in my neck of the woods, school is starting soon. Teachers and principals have been in endless meetings preparing for students to arrive. Summer is coming to a close, though you'd never know it by the temperature outside. I think the reason we always started school so late when I was growing up had to do with this August heat and the lack of air conditioning in our buildings. Not so now. Some school systems in the area started last week. The rest will follow quickly. And by Labor Day, the old, official end of summer, students will be celebrating their first holiday.

My friends who are teachers are certainly feeling the crunch as they prepare for classes. And I feel the tension myself as I look at the schedule for fall and wonder, "How am I going to get all this done?"

I'm reminding myself to be careful not to get so caught up in the necessary business that I don't slow down long enough to enjoy the last roses blooming on scraggly stems, the Joe Pye weed ready to blossom the minute the heat breaks, the solitary black-capped chickadee that found a late-hung feeder. 

Leisure
by W.H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I know there will be days of being caught up in the flurry of things that must be done, but I'm purposing to make time to "stand and stare." I hope you will, too.

More Poetry Friday with Violet Nesdoly/poems.